Eleanor Limprecht’s second novel (which follows her 2013 debut What Was Left) unfolds in Sydney in the early 1900s at a time when options for women were still very limited. It follows the life of dressmaker Rebecca Sinclair. Married at 19 to the seemingly charming Don, Rebecca sees marriage as an escape from impoverishment and […]

Featuring a gutsy female investigative journalist, Maralinga is a compelling story of romance, power and espionage set during the 1950s when the British government conducted an extensive series of nuclear tests in the desert of South Australia, an area inhabited and traditionally owned by Indigenous Australians. Very little was known about these events at the […]

Fiction in History In this session about historical fiction and telling the stories of those who may have been forgotten, Carol Major spoke with poet/novelist Judy Johnson (The Secret Fate of Mary Watson) and Jesse Blackadder (The Raven’s Heart). All three writers are Varuna alumni. Judy Johnson’s novel is set in far-north Queensland and is […]

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Varuna, the Writers’ House — Australia’s only national, residential writers’ centre. Varuna holds an important place in Australia’s literary and political heritage. The ‘Grand Old Lady of the Mountains’, The Carrington hotel in Katoomba is the home of the increasingly popular Varuna program of Sydney Writers’ Festival. Built […]